RIYADH, 17 January 2004 — Government steps to curb militant funding and subsequent restrictions imposed on charities have adversely affected the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) whose fund collections went down by 70 percent last year.
“WAMY is no longer allowed to collect donations in mosques or set up charity boxes at religious and commercial centers or at public places,” said Dr. Saleh Al-Babaeer, WAMY’s assistant secretary-general here yesterday.
Dr Al-Babaeer said “it is a difficult period of financial constraints that we will have to live with.”
He said WAMY has launched a cost cutting move, which will affect its charitable activities and its future expansion plan. It has already served termination notices to 10 percent of its employees recently, according to Dr. Babaeer. Late last year, WAMY had announced plans to expand its presence despite lawsuits filed against it and other Muslim organizations by the victims of Sept. 11 attacks in the US.
The plans included setting up offices in New Zealand, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where there is a growing interest in Islam. WAMY, which was also planning to bring out French and Spanish editions of their monthly magazine, currently has offices in 59 countries around the globe. The charity organization has insisted that the false charges of WAMY’s militant connections are part of a smear campaign in the United States and that its work is devoted to supporting orphans and Muslim students around the world.
“We have an office that is still functioning in Washington, and this is because no one can prove anything about WAMY. No one can come up with any real accusation or any wrong doing,” said Dr. Babaeer. Answering a question, he gave no precise figure for the money WAMY collected but said last year it got around SR40 million.
“Because of government measures, the organization had been unable to send money to students abroad for the past six months and had been forced to cut its staff, “Dr. Babaeer was quoted by Reuters as saying yesterday. Last year, the government ordered that donations be paid directly into registered charity bank accounts.
